Populated Places and Settlements in Laos from OpenStreetMap

OpenStreetMap data for Laos contains settlements and residential areas contributed by volunteers. The dataset includes named cities, towns, villages, suburbs, and residential land, derived from OSM tags `place=*` and `landuse=residential`. It was last updated on 2026-05-14 and is provided by the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT).

Use Cases

• Create demographic context maps based on settlement locations and types.
• Perform settlement-level targeting for humanitarian or development projects based on residential areas.
• Conduct population distribution analysis using the spatial distribution of populated places.

Strengths

• Includes data from a collaborative, free world map built by volunteers.
• Covers multiple settlement types: cities, towns, villages, suburbs, and residential land.
• Available in multiple geospatial file formats: GEOPACKAGE, SHP, GEOJSON, JSON, and HTML.

Limitations

• Completeness varies by region; urban areas are usually well-mapped, but remote areas may be incomplete.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

OpenStreetMap

Collection Method

Volunteer-contributed mapping data exported via the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT).

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-14 17:17:52.945767

Geography

Laos